


The Art of Being Held

by jonathanharkersfoodblog



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Jon Needs a Hug, No beta we kayak like Tim, idk how to tag this is my first time posting, lots and lots of hurt/comfort, that’s basically the whole premise of the fic, the “original character” shows up for like 1 scene and isn’t even named, written before season 5 started
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-13
Updated: 2020-08-13
Packaged: 2021-03-06 00:28:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,388
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25884364
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jonathanharkersfoodblog/pseuds/jonathanharkersfoodblog
Summary: A collection of the few moments in Jon’s life where he’s let himself be truly vulnerable.
Relationships: Georgie Barker & Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist, Georgie Barker/Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist, Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist & Alice "Daisy" Tonner, Jonathan “Jon” Sims | The Archivist & Original Male Character, Jonathan “Jon” Sims | The Archivist & his mother, Martin Blackwood & Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist, Martin Blackwood/Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist
Comments: 9
Kudos: 100





	The Art of Being Held

**Author's Note:**

> This is second fanfiction I’ve ever written for anything ever so I hope it’s okay. I’ve written other stuff since this, but I’ve never shown it to anyone besides my friend. This is one of the works I’m proudest of, so I’m putting it up first. Also if anyone can tell me how to tag things better, I would very much appreciate it.
> 
> Now that my rambling is out of the way, I hope you enjoy!

The Archivist does a whole lot of beholding, but has never been one much for being held. If he thinks about it, it is becase he knows that under all his stuffiness and trivial knowledge and increasingly massive sweaters, he is small. He is small and the kind of skinny that would alarm grandmothers all over (except his own, he supposes). He is small and stitched together by scars that can’t hope to cover the missing pieces, physical and not. He is small and worn down, sun-deprived skin sagging off nothing more than bone around his dark eyes with his rarely brushed, rapidly greying hair half-heartedly tied in a sorry imitation of a ponytail at the nape of his neck. He is small. He is broken. He is fragile. And to be held...

To be held is to entrust those broken pieces, that fragility, that smallness entirely to someone else. To wholly relinquish control. To be vulnerable in a way that simply exchanging a hug does not require. And the Archivist is afraid of it. But not afraid in any way that those existentially horrific fear gods could understand. No. This is not a fear with scope, with a far-reaching, all-consuming nature. This is not a fear that could encompass the universe and glut on its suffering. This fear is small. Like him. This fear is the fear of being hurt. Of trusting the wrong person. A person who will not treat his broken pieces with care. A person who will look into those eyes that have seen too much and not see a thing. A person who will leave nothing to remember them by but one more scar in his already extensive collection.

There have been few people that the Archivist—that Jonathan Sims—has allowed, has trusted enough to hold him in all of his life. But if, amongst the ruins of his humanity, one thing still stands, it is those people and those moments.

——————

Jon is young when his mother dies. Too young to remember much. But he has this one memory. Most times, he condemns it as inconsequential. Stupid. Why, of all things, does he remember this? But this is a lie. This memory is an oft-visited treasure, though he will admit it to none.

His is young. He can’t be more than three years old. His knee is bleeding and he is crying. Such a silly thing to cry over. Such a silly thing to have cared so much about such tiny pains as this for most of his life. But then again, for most of his life he didn’t have the perspective of being constantly in supernaturally life-threatening danger.

Three-year-old Jon is crying. He can only guess that his blurry, vaguely recalled surroundings are his home. His parents’ home. Jon looks up from his knee, sniffling pathetically, as children do. He sees his mother. Her face is unclear. He cannot remember it exactly. But it is still so warm and inviting and it seems to wash all the pain away. The feeling of a smile from her swims into his fuzzy memory. She gently drips rubbing alcohol over his tiny little wound. She says something to him. Something reassuring. The words themselves did not survive the years, but the feeling has always remained. It makes him feel whole and healed. Before he knows it, a large bandage is on his knee. That feeling of a smile returns. He is lifted from his seat by his mother’s hands and held against her chest. He rests his head on her shoulder and the echoes of her laughter reverberate through the warmly fuzzy memory.

And his mother’s embrace feels good.

——————

Jon is fifteen and he lives with his grandmother. She is cold and he is difficult. A match made in... well, maybe not hell, but definitely not heaven. Purgatory, he settles on, though it doesn’t quite seem to fit. He doesn’t feel like he’s working towards any reward. Unless you count finally being able to leave and go to university. Yes, he decides. That is the reward. That is is his heaven and he is in purgatory.

He’s at a party. He doesn’t really know why. This isn’t his crowd, this isn’t the way he spends his time. But he is at the party all the same. Well, technically, he is outside the party, in a stranger’s backyard, alone on a creaky wooden swing and holding a half-drunken cup of some sort of alcoholic beverage. He didn’t really check to see what it was, but at least it didn’t come from an open bowl. He may be inexperienced, but even Jon isn’t dumb enough to drink from there.

The music floats outside to meet Jon and the maybe twelve other people in the backyard with him. He doesn’t know the song. Part of him wishes he did and that he could sing along with the people inside, but part of him decidedly doesn’t care. Doesn’t want to care.

But he still cares all the same.

The back door opens. He isn’t looking at it, but he can tell. Not so much by the noise of an opening door, but by the temporary increase in the music’s volume. The figure that just came out of the door walks over to him. Nervousness blooms in his stomach and vines up to his throat, wrapping itself firmly around his heart on its way up. The figure sits on the swing bench beside him. At this distance, Jon can tell that it’s a boy about his age.

Apparently this boy has never heard of personal space. It’s not like he’s draped himself over Jon, but he sat close enough for their thighs to be pressed together, inciting a roaring conflict within Jon. The touch makes him tense up and he feels uncomfortable, perhaps even a little afraid. But he can’t deny that it feels a little... nice. A little happy.

“Aren’t they beautiful?” the boy says.

“What?”

“The stars. Aren’t they beautiful?”

Jon looks up. It is a clear night and out here, far enough from the town, there is less light pollution. He can see endless stars sparkling like someone tossed a bag of glitter across the sky and it all fell just right.

“Yes,” Jon tells the stranger by his side, “Yes, they are beautiful.”

“Yeah... Y’know I don’t think I’ve ever met you before,” the boy says suddenly, though his voice doesn’t drop that awestruck, quiet quality.

“I don’t usually come to parties,” Jon responds hesitantly.

“Maybe that’s it.” The boy turns away from the glittering black sky to look at Jon. Jon has a hard time meeting his all-too-close gaze. “I’m glad you’re here, though.”

“Why?”

“Well, think about it. All of your choices you’ve ever made have led you to this moment, even if they had nothing to do with you coming to this party. But you chose to come to this party, you chose to come out here, you chose to sit on this swing. And if you didn’t choose to be here, then I wouldn’t have met you. And I’d have no one to share the sky with.”

And all of a sudden, the boy lays one arm around Jon’s shoulders and wraps his other around Jon’s front, loosely gripping Jon’s arm. He leans his head on Jon’s shoulder. Jon can smell the alcohol on his breath. He has no doubts that this bout of touchy-feely-ness is a result of that.

That conflict within Jon rages even stronger than before. He’s almost scared the boy might suddenly throw up on him. His entire body is tense and rigid. But it feels good to be hugged. To be appreciated, even by a stranger. Jon makes a decision and the conflict is resolved. He relaxes his muscles and leans into the boy’s embrace, laying his own head against the stranger’s.

They watch the sky and listen to the music from within for what feels like a lifetime. And it feels good.

It feels good to be wanted.

———————

Jon is in his second year of university. A year and a half ago, he met Georgie Barker. This year, they’re renting a flat together. And Jon is alone in that flat, exhausted even though it’s barely 3pm and sobbing over piles and piles of textbooks and notebooks and papers and his old, partly broken laptop. He doesn’t cry much. It’s a waste of time, he thinks. Time spent over-indulging his emotions is time that could have been much better spent working or doing something else that would actually produce results.

Not to mention he’s never really gotten much out of crying. People say it’s cathartic, that it’s good for you, that it... whatever. Jon never feels better after he’s cried. Just more lost. At least when he feels like crying but doesn’t do it, he has an accurate grasp of what’s going on and a motivation to distract himself with work so as not to focus on the all-too-invasive feelings. After he cries, he just feels lost and without motivation. But here he is, crying all the same. He doesn’t even really know why. Maybe it’s the all the final papers and projects and so on, but he really doesn’t think that they could possibly be the sole source of all this nonsense.

He doesn’t hear the door open. He is barely cognizant of the sound of Georgie trudging toward their room, probably to flop onto the bed and just lay there for a while, as she tends to do. She flings the door open. Jon doesn’t bother to look up from where his face is buried in his arms atop his desk, though he does try (and mostly fail) to quiet his wild, rattling sobs.

“Jon?” He hears a thud that he assumes to be her bags falling to the floor.

“Jon?” Georgie repeats. Her footsteps pad toward him. He feels her hand on his head, her fingers slipping into his hair in that same, familiar way. He musters the energy to look up at her and let her see his bloodshot eyes and tear-streaked face. He doesn’t really know what to say.

Georgie grabs the chair from her desk and drags it to sit in in front of him. She cups his face in both of her hands. She doesn’t seem to know what to say either. So they sit there. His racking sobs don’t slow. She lets the tears run over her fingers.

“Jon,” she says one more time, “Come here.” She stands up, not moving her hands from his face. He looks up at her. “Come here,” she tells him again. It is a gentle command. Jon stands. Georgie is taller than him—not by much, but enough to be noticeable. She’s broader than him, too. Amidst the tornado of unwanted emotions, Jon is reminded of how small he is.

He doesn’t notice the moments between when her hands are on his face and when her arms are wrapped solidly around him. But suddenly he is surrounded by her. She is warm despite the cold outside. He feels safe. Safe to keep on crying until the tears run out, secure in the knowledge that she’ll hold him until they do and even after if he needs. So he hugs her back and feels as though he is melting into her, the rigidity and chill of stress and unhealthy coping mechanisms disappearing more and more with every second. When they part, there is a wet patch on Georgie’s sweater. She tells Jon she doesn’t mind.

It is the first time that Jon can remember feeling better after crying.

———————

Jon is in his office, furiously picking at the grime under his nails. He and Daisy escaped the Buried five days ago and he still hasn’t been able to shake the feeling that he is irreparably... dirty. It had never been easier to leave the Archives than when they had first emerged from the Coffin. Jon had gone home (though, did he really even consider his little flat home at this point?) and taken quite possibly the longest shower of his life. He had let the water run so hot it was scalding and had scrubbed at his skin until it was raw and the water was freezing cold. And he still hadn’t felt clean, no matter how much he tried to convince himself he was.

The next day, he could tell Daisy had done the same. All of her exposed skin looked red and raw and painful. But the feeling wasn’t gone. They both had caught each other picking obsessively at their nails or skin or hair. Had seen how red each other’s hands were from constant washing. But neither had known what to say any of those times. So there was simply a silent acknowledgment that they knew what was going on. And maybe there‘s solidarity in that, but Jon doesn’t really know.

He hears the door to his office open and he Knows that it’s Daisy who’s walking in. He no longer takes issue with Knowing. There’s too many more important things to worry about than a voyeuristic fear god dropping random knowledge into his brain (which is a sad and slightly horrifying statement in and of itself, he thinks). Daisy drags a chair to the opposite side of his desk and sinks into it.

Before the Buried, before the Coffin, Jon had never really realized how Daisy really wasn’t all that large. She had been always muscular, sure, but not actually that tall or broad. She‘s actually shorter than him, or just about his height, he can’t really tell. And the ever-finicky Eye doesn’t feel inclined to clarify for him. Yet here she is, seeming small and vulnerable, but with a fire in her eyes. It isn’t the same as the bloodlust and adrenaline junkie-ish wild thrill of the Hunt. It‘s quieter, but determined all the same.

Still, Jon doesn’t know what to say as Daisy sits across from him. He keeps picking at his nails with a mad and terrified fervor that he doesn’t disguise well. Daisy reaches across the desk and puts her hands on his. And Jon freezes. He looks up and meets her gaze. There it is—that determination, but softened by something Jon doesn’t recognize.

Daisy looks down and pries his hand open. She begins to run her thumb across his palm—it’s the unburned one. Jon flinches a little bit. It’s instinct at this point, he guesses, to be afraid of touch. Too many touches have hurt him. Daisy stops. She meets his eyes again. She doesn’t say anything aloud, but the question is asked and understood all the same.  _ Is this okay? _

Jon hesitates. And then answers. He relaxes the muscles in his hand and arm lets his shoulders droop.  _ Yes _ .

So Daisy continues. He takes her other hand in his and begins to do the same. He hopes that the lingering burn scars covering almost all of that hand don’t feel too off-putting. She doesn’t seem to mind, though.

After... well, Jon doesn’t really know how long but it can’t have been more than a few minutes, Daisy rises from her seat. She walks around his desk and stands in front of him.

“I can still feel it.” The first words she’s spoken to him all day. Jon doesn’t respond,but he knows she knows that he’s listening intently. “Every day. When I’m asleep, I can feel it pressing in on me and when I’m awake I can never be clean.”

“I know. I feel the same.” Jon stands. “But we’re not there anymore. You’re not there anymore. You’re free. Free of it, free of... what came before...” Jon doesn’t know what to say. He’s never been good at speeches or comforting people. He doesn’t even know how to console himself. But he doesn’t have to.

Daisy steps forward and hugs him. It’s the last thing Jon would have ever expected Detective Alice “Daisy” Tonner to do, but maybe because the only Daisy he ever knew was one consumed by the Hunt. This Daisy, the real Daisy, is gentle and broken and fierce and powerful in a way that’s entirely her own. He hugs her back. Jon can feel her breathing fighting to remain steady and he’s sure she can feel his doing the same. Eventually, their breaths slow and synchronize. And eventually, they part.

_ Thank you. _

Daisy leaves. But the next time Jon tries to shower away that awful, grimy claustrophobia, it’s not as hard as it was before. His skin is not raw by the end. And the next day, neither is Daisy’s.

———————

The world is a hurricane and the Archivist at the epicenter. In its eye. The window before him has shattered and the sky is gazing down at him. At the world. Drinking in all the terror as the human race watches the world rend itself apart and stitch itself back together in unnatural ways only to undo those stitches and redo them in an endless cycle.

He is shaken awake. “Jon! Jon wake up!” A slap across the face. “Jon!”

“AAH!” A man—Martin—is kneeling in front of him. The utter horror spelled plainly across his face and rolling off of him in waves is delicious. The Archivist hates that. No. It does not hate that.  Jon hates that.

“Martin?” Jon takes in his surroundings in a panic. Broken glass on the floor from the shattered window before him. A horrific light of a color he can’t place tumbling into the room. He almost thinks he can hear distant screams carried over the rushing wind outside.

“Oh no. What happened?” Jon asks, even though he already knows the answer.

“I don’t know,” Martin says. He sounds on the verge of tears. Maybe he’s already crying. “Everything— It’s all gone wrong.”

Jon realizes he’s laying on the floor. He tries to move, but it hurts. “Help me up,” he demands. He grunts from effort and pain as Martin hauls him up from the floor and helps him stand. Jon has to lean on Martin for support. He tries to make for the door, though he doesn’t even really know why.

“No no no don’t go outside. It’s real bad,” Martin says.

Jon finally turns and looks out the window. “Oh god.”

“I-I don’t know if it’s just here or—“

“No. No it’s everywhere. They’re all here now. I can feel... all of it.”

“Jon, I’m scared.”

“The whole world is afraid, Martin. Because of me.” The reality of it all hits him. Because of him. “And the Watcher drinks it all in.”

“Jon?”

Jon is staring out the window, meeting the invasive, oppressive, and utterly terrifying gaze of the largest eye boring holes into the soul of the earth. “Look at the sky, Martin.” A smile begins to turn the corners of his mouth upward. No, not his mouth. The Archivist’s. “Look at the sky.” There are tears. Jon’s tears are streaming down the Archivist’s face. “It’s looking back!”

The Archivist’s laughter too quickly mixes with and becomes Jon’s sobs.

Jon lets Martin wrap him in a hug, grasping at Martin’s sweater and clutching it, clutching him, holding on for dear life. The hug is almost too close to breathe. He can still taste the terror in Martin’s soul.

They do not part as they move away from the broken window. Away from the full force of that drilling gaze. Instead, Martin lifts Jon off his feet. And holds him. Jon is no longer scared of this. Of being held. Isn’t it odd? In a world full of fear, the fear he had always called his own is now gone.

Martin is crying, too. He sets Jon down on the bed that is too small to hold both of them and then lays down next to Jon anyway. Jon lets himself be enfolded, surrounded by Martin. And this tiny little sliver of “right” in a world that no longer knows the meaning of the word... Jon doesn’t know how it feels. But he doesn’t want to. He just wants to be held as he wishes he wasn’t so stupid. And Martin holds him. Martin holds him and he holds Martin as they hide from the world Jon destroyed.


End file.
